Alpha Mail: Pickup at the checkout

In which a low-Delta man attempts to improve himself:

I wrote to you back in February about coming to terms with my place in the SMP, a realization brought on by your public interaction with John Scalzi. Your advice was very helpful, and I have endeavored to improve myself since then. I restarted my resistance training, started a new job, etc. And I have attempted to become more social, with some success albeit limited.

I wanted to ask for your advice given a certain situation. There's a girl, you see.

I go to Whole Foods on Sunday evenings to treat myself to some decent food, and a few weeks ago I went through the checkout line where a cute girl was stationed. I was the last person to go through right as she closed her register. Spur of the moment, I figured I could flirt a bit with her. Her line had been really long, so I told her that she should wear a huge fake wedding ring to stave off some of the male customers that were getting in line just to talk to her. She laughed and said she would have to try it.

Couple of weeks later I saw her again. Her line was long and this time I was in the middle of it, but she talked with me for a good long while about how she asked her cousin who asked her husband who said that the wedding ring idea was totally silly and not gonna work, all while beaming up at me and playing with her hair and generally acting silly enough for her coworkers to start pointing and smiling.

I told her that of course it wasn't gonna work and her cousin should have told her that I was obviously flirting with her. She said that her cousin had told her exactly that and I told her she was a silly lil thing and said g'bye, since she had at least six or seven people waiting to checkout behind me.

So yesterday, I'm there again. She's only got one person in front of me, a middle aged woman buying a couple bottles of wine and some snacks, makes eye contact and smiles. I smile back, but another cashier has a register open and calls me over. I'm walking over to him and she goes "oh, I see how it is." I laugh and he says that he thinks that she wants me to wait on her, so I go ahead and get back in line behind the woman, who promises that she'll pay quickly so that cashier girl can talk to the cute guy. (This caught me way off guard) So older lady pays and leaves, I tease cashier girl for begging me to come talk to her, and one of her friends starts talking to her about some drama going on at work while she rings me up.

I had a text I had to answer, so I'm just kinda standing there half-paying attention to the conversation she's having with her coworker while I take care of business. Coworker leaves, and I just turn my phone around to cashier girl, who seems to pick up on exactly what I was asking for.

"Really?" she asks.

"Uh, yeah." I respond.

She laughed nervously and says "maybe next time" in several permutations and gives me my desert for free for waiting for her. I laughed at her and told her that she was silly. "See you next time." she said, still laughing kinda nervously.

So, I haven't really read any books or blogs on game because I've just been trying to work on myself as far as basic stuff goes -- dressing better, working out and such. Did I totally blow this one? I can't help but think that "maybe next time" translates to "probably no not ever." And it's really bugging me a lot.

Like I said, I haven't had much success with being social yet, but I thought that this girl was really digging me given the way she acted. Did I go wrong somewhere? I'm thinking it was actually getting in line behind that woman when she asked me to that hung me up.

So what exactly do I do now? Do I write this one off and just play it cool if I see her again? I don't want to ask for her number again because that seems like a desperate move, but I'm really digging this girl and thought that she was into me too. Or maybe she's just a flirt?

Welcome to the concept known as "the window of opportunity". Our emailer here was bitten by the dread Delta disease known as "waiting for the right time". Unless a woman is receiving or providing emergency medical treatment, the right time is always NOW.

Remember, women are DYNAMIC. Their opinions and attractions change with the wind. Even if she was genuinely attracted to the emailer at the time of their first encounter says absolutely nothing about whether she was attracted to him the next time. In fact, a woman who initially attracted may well be downright uninterested in a man on the basis of his behavior during that first encounter. Because men's attraction tends to be binary and stable, they wrongly assume that if a woman was interested in them once, she must still be interested in them so long as she hasn't gotten too involved with anyone else. This is occasionally true, but it is neither necessarily or usually true.

My diagnosis is too much talk, too little aggressive masculine action. The more attractive the woman, the more intense and immediate the action she expects. (Yes, you don't need to spell out Indifference Game to a Sigma, but we're dealing with basic concepts for a man working his way out of gammatude here. Piano, piano.)

So while obeying her and following the rules probably didn't help, the larger problem was probably the failure to pursue. Don't worry about it. This entire experience was a big step forward.  Now it's time to remember there are plenty of girls on the girl tree and move on. Be friendly. Be charming. But behave towards her like you already found another girlfriend. If she's still genuinely interested, she'll be curious and will let you know, at which point you can go back into pursuit mode - active pursuit mode this time.

And if she isn't, well, be grateful that she taught you one of the most important lessons a man can learn, which is that female interest is time-limited.